Author: Ryan Lucas

NPR Enlarge this image Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has sued the Justice Department even as he faces federal charges for alleged conspiracy and money laundering. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption toggle caption Jacquelyn Martin/AP President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is suing the Justice Department and special counsel Robert Mueller, alleging that Mueller has exceeded his mandate by investigating matters unrelated to the 2016 election. Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates face money laundering and other charges as part of the special counsel’s investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. Both have pleaded...

President Trump is once again lashing out at the FBI, mounting a Twitter attack against Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who’s planning to retire soon. LAUREN FRAYER, HOST: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Lulu Garcia-Navarro is off for the holidays. I’m Lauren Frayer. President Trump is celebrating Christmas in Florida, but Washington is still clearly very much on his mind. He took a few moments out of his break to take aim at a frequent target of his lately, the FBI. NPR’s justice reporter Ryan Lucas has been following this and joins us now. Hey, Ryan. RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Good morning. FRAYER: Trump’s been going after one man in particular, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. What can you tell us about McCabe? LUCAS: Well, McCabe is a career FBI official. He’s been at the bureau for more than 20 years. He rose up through the ranks, worked a number of mob cases in New York City early on in his career before he shifted more to counterterrorism work. He’s held senior positions at the Washington field office, at FBI headquarters in Washington. He was named deputy director by James Comey in January of 2016. This is the No. 2 position at the bureau. So McCabe was overseeing domestic and international investigations, which gave him a central role, of course, into the biggest and most high-profile cases of late. That...

NPR Enlarge this image Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller’s office says Paul Manafort’s would-be coauthor on a new column defending himself has ties to Russian intelligence. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption toggle caption Jacquelyn Martin/AP Paul Manafort is trying to sway public opinion of his case by working with a Russian collaborator who has ties to Russia’s intelligence services, special counsel Robert Mueller’s office said in court papers Monday. Mueller’s team said it learned last week that Manafort has been working with a Russian compatriot on a newspaper column that prosecutors say violates a gag order by U.S. District...

NPR Enlarge this image The seal of the F.B.I. hangs in the Flag Room at the bureau’s headquarters. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images The number of hate crimes reported last year rose by 4.6 percent compared to the previous year, according to data released Monday by the FBI. The total tally of hate crimes in 2016 was 6,121, compared to 5,850 in 2015. More than half of those incidents were motivated by the victim’s race. The FBI statistics are based on voluntary reporting by nearly 16,000 local law-enforcement agencies. Civil-rights groups, however, say the...

NPR Enlarge this image Carter Page, former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, speaks to the media after testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on November 2, 2017, in Washington, D.C. Mark Wilson/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Mark Wilson/Getty Images Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page told a number of his campaign colleagues and supervisors about his dealings with Russians, he told members of Congress last week. One of them was Jeff Sessions, then an Alabama senator and early Trump endorser and now the attorney general. Sessions has previously denied he was aware of anyone...

NPR Enlarge this image Special counsel Robert Mueller’s high-powered team of investigators and lawyers has expertise in everything from white-collar crime and fraud to national security. Andrew Harnik/AP hide caption toggle caption Andrew Harnik/AP Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, turned himself in to the FBI on Monday morning in response to the first charges in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in last year’s election. Manafort, dressed in a dark suit and blue tie, appeared at the FBI’s Washington field office just after 8 a.m. with his lawyer. He was escorted into the building by...

GOOGLE NEWS Enlarge this image Facebook and Twitter appear to be key platforms in Russia’s interference in the 2016 election; investigators want to know more. Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images For more than nine months, Twitter and Facebook have tried to dodge the intense public scrutiny involved with the investigation into Russian interference in last year’s presidential election. Now they’re in the spotlight. Congressional investigators are digging in on Russia’s use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies to try to influence the 2016 campaign. And after a series of escalating complaints by...